Blue Ridge Parkway: Then & Now

The 469-mile roadway through the mountains of Virginia and North Carolina was designed, back in the 1930s, to be a timeless experience. In many ways it has remained so.

Photo Above: Past: Peaks of Otter Lodge (MP 85.6).
Photos Courtesy of National Park Service.

Original Blue Ridge Parkway landscape architect Stanley Abbott (1908-1975) was at the peak of his powers in the 1930s as he set out to create “a museum of managed American countryside” with the 469-mile route that would connect Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park and North Carolina/Tennessee’s Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

In many ways, as the photo pairs on these pages attest, that is precisely what occurred. His “pioneer project of a scale and character [was]new to the National Park Service and new as well to the field of recreational planning.”

These nine decades later, with new funding for maintenance (see page 82 for an interview with BRP Superintendent Tracy Swartout), the parkway is poised for renewal to its timeless assets.

The historic insets are courtesy of the National Park Service archives, and are used with permission. The modern-day photos are from J. Scott Graham, who for decades has created parkway calendars and other commemorative items. For more information on his collections and items for sale: jscottgraham.com; 423-341-9463.

The story above first appeared in our May / June 2023 issue.